And peace for all ..this holiday and everyday..

Just six months after South Sudan gained independence, severe inflation, rebellions and escalating tensions with Sudan are dampening the euphoria that followed secession and undermining efforts to build badly-needed state institutions and a new nation for all.

South Sudanese celebrated the birth of Africa's newest nation on July 9 as they split away from Sudan ending a 22 year long conflict claimed countless millions of lives and made the lives of the survivors perpetually difficult.

But hard realities have since set in. Disputes with Sudan's government in Khartoum have raged over issues from oil revenues to ending border violence. The countries' armed forces clashed in a rare direct confrontation in a disputed border region this month.

Even if peace with Khartoum holds, a war-torn and severely underdeveloped country bordering six nations - could become a quagmire with several lawless regions and rising poverty.

About 2.7 million South Sudanese, roughly a third of the population, will need food aid from next year because of crop failures and widespread violence that killed more than 3,000 peopl e in 2011, the United Nations says.

Violence on the border with Sudan has disrupted trade, pushing annual inflation to almost 80 percent, up from 57 percent in August. Inflation is 100 percent in some regions,adding to the hardships of people already exhausted by decades of civil war. We saw most people not being able to afford life saving soap, crucial to hygenine, at the local store as it is imported from neighboring countries and costs three times the daily wage.

The government has sold oil worth around $3 billion since July but there are few signs it is channeling the money to development projects or shifting resources from the dominant armed forces except to build roads no locals can use.

NO PROGRESS

Ravaged by civil war and neglect dating back to the British colonial era, South Sudan is one of the world's least developed nations. It has less than 100 km (62 miles) of paved roads and its budget depends almost entirely on oil revenues.

There is hardly any infrastructure outside the capital Juba, which buzzes with hundreds of consultants and aid workers. Aid groups provide basic services such as clean water in many regions of the country, roughly the size of France but not in forgotten Magwi on any scale large enough to put a dent in the needs of 300,000 of the poorest people on the planet.

Adding to social pressures, more than 350,000 southerners have returned from Sudan and more than one million might follow once their legal status ends in Khartoum in April. They will need jobs and housing.

SQUEEZED BY KHARTOUM

Though a return to full-scale war with Khartoum seems unlikely tensions will get worse as both governments need revenues from South Sudan's oil.

Landlocked South Sudan relies on Sudan's export facilities to sell its crude.

By regularly closing the poorly marked joint border, Khartoum is hurting South Sudanese regions which depend on food imports from the north and are awash with refugees escaping fighting in Sudan's South Kordofan and Blue Nile states. Here in Magwi refugees are returned from Uganda's camps to find nothing to hold on to and that in most cases life is WORSE. Uganda , Sudan and the NGOs have abandoned them.

The fact is the South Sudan we saw has a long way to go before it is the country it has pledged to be for ALL its people. It is our hope that in the next year that peace and prosperity and a life of abundance will extend to Magwi county's Acholi people. It is only fair .